Susie in Lithuania

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Ruta Sepetys wrote a wonderful book called "Between Shades of Gray" about the deportation of Lithuanians under Stalin's reign. I read the book last summer and thoroughly enjoyed it. Not only was it a great read, it obviously spoke to my heart in a special way now that I live in Lithuania. LCC had the honor of hosting Ruta to our campus last week. She gave several lectures, spoke in classes and helped with an English speaking competion that was held on campus. She seemed to enjoy our campus a great deal. And I know that we loved having her here!

Robin Gingerich, chair of the English Department, introducing Ruta.

Ruta sharing about how she conducted research for the book.

The evening session was open to the community, so we had Grazina translate what Ruta said into Lithuanian.

One of the women in the crowd had been a deportee and lived through the ordeal,

There were beautiful flowers on the stage. A nod to the fact that it was March 1st (the first day of spring according to Lithuanian tradition) and I think also a reminder of the beauty of the hope that surrounded the characters in the story.

Our Student Council hosted the European Student Forum in February. The Leadership Development worked to bring in a special guest speaker. This year we brought in Sam Potolicchio, a professor from Georgetown University in the US. We had connected with him through a former LCC student who had rave reviews of a seminar of his that she attended this past summer. If you know me, you know that people (or movies or books or whatever) that come with such gushing reviews tend to cause me to be rather skeptical. I meet them with guarded regard and see if they live up to all the hype. Well, Sam did! He was an amazing speaker, interacted well with our students, and did just an overall fabulous job!

We had him join our monthly RA training on Friday for lunch. He led a discussion on leadership. He gave a few words about his experiences and some general observations to begin our time. He then interacted with the staff about leadership challenges that they experience in their roles and gave them good solid counsel on how to deal with the issues. It was an excellent session.

Sam talking to our staff.

RAs listening intently...Iuna, Tanya, Natalija, Ira, and Roma

Snickerdoodle Muffins

We had another Mug n Muffin event in February. I did not speak at this one, but I did help with the event by baking lots of yummy muffins for the gals to enjoy! I have been using StumbleUpon a lot this winter to find new recipes (I'm into it like most others are into Pinterest.) While on there I ran across a recipe for Snickerdoodle Muffins that I just HAD to try! I love snickerdoodle cookies and the recipe said that these muffins were just like the cookies, only in muffin form. So I decided to try the recipe and see if they were really that good. Know what? They are!

It looks like a cookie sheet full of delicious snickerdoodles, but...

they are muffins!

Here's a link to the recipe if you want to try it out!

http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/breads/snickerdoodle-muffins-3/

Sunday, February 19, 2012

The view outside my window

I didn't go outside in the snow on Saturday. Instead I took a few photos from inside my cozy apartment so that you can see what I looked out at all day.

This was the view outside my kitchen window.

This is the building next door to mine.

This is the view from my living room looking at the high school across the street.

A snowy day

Friday was beautiful! Or at least I thought it was! :) It was snowing big fluffy snowflakes all afternoon. Kim and I had gone out for lunch and then did a little looking at the shops in Old Town. It was a wonderful afternoon of connecting with one another - sharing stories and laughter. Oh, how I will miss this woman when she moves back to the states in May! I'm trying to eek out as much wonderfulness with her as I can before then.

A snowy pair: me and Kim - my amazing friend/boss!

Another Student Life Birthday!

Romas is our chapel coordinator. He is a Lithuanian, but volunteers with us (the rest of the Lithuanians at LCC are paid employees) beceause he wants to get involved in what we are doing here. His birthday was on Friday, but he doesn't come in on Fridays, so we surprised him with a cake and flowers after chapel on Wednesday! He was very surprised! :)